Since NBC left iTunes due to price disagreements, NBC has been loosing money, and a lot of it. Yahoo News reports that NBC has refunded about $500,000 per advertiser on the network due to not making the guaranteed rating levels. According the Yahoo, networks almost never refund advertising money, and rather offer free advertising spots, but due to the coming holiday season, few spots are available.
“We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We hope they will change their minds and offer their TV shows to the tens of millions of iTunes customers.”
Apple’s agreement with NBC ends in December. Since NBC would withdraw their shows in the middle of the television season, Apple has decided to not offer NBC TV shows for the upcoming television season beginning in September. NBC supplied iTunes with three of its 10 best selling TV shows last season, accounting for 30 percent of iTunes TV show sales.
At the end of August, Apple confirmed that it would stop selling NBC’s content in this press release, stating very simply that NBC wants more money and Apple does not want to give it, costing their customers more than double.
Read [Yahoo News] via [Macenstein]
I am never home to watch shows when they are on so I loved the iTunes store. I bought season passes for all the shows I watched. NBC, USA, and SCI-Fi will force me to just start watching other shows. I do not like buying tv shows on dvd but I do like watching them on my tv from my ipod as opposed to online. NBC has made a big mistake!!!